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It’s one of the biggest questions any new business owner faces,
and the answer is different for everyone. But according to a new
study published in The Academy of Management Journal, if
you jump ship too early, you could be setting yourself up for
failure.

Professors Joseph Raffiee and Jie Feng at the University of
Wisconsin-Madison found that "hybrid" entrepreneurs -- people who
maintain their regular gig and while launching their new ventures
in stages -- are a third less likely to fail than those who jump
in sans safety net.

Additionally, they maintain that hybrid business owners who
transition to full-time self-employment "have much higher rates
of survival relative" to those who quit their job and then
directly start a new company. There is always a factor of risk
when launching a new venture, but the study purports that you
don't need to thrive on risk in order to be effective.

Indeed, Raffiee and Feng write, "our findings suggest that risk
aversion influences the process of how an individual
decides to start a business (i.e., full-time versus hybrid), not
necessarily whether the individual decides to start a
business or not."

The study also cited notable entrepreneurs who took the "hybrid"
approach from Steve Wozniak, who worked at Hewlett Packard while
co-founding Apple, to Henry Ford, who started the Detroit
Automobile Group when he was an employee at the Edison
Illuminating Company.

The study's larger finding explores the value of taking your time
and testing the waters. Entrepreneurs don't have to devote
all of their time and attention to their new venture immediately
in order to be successful; the study recommends making small
commitments at first, feeling out your working style and skills
and testing demand for your product without placing all your eggs
into one basket.